Slashdot Mirror
MOOC Mania
theodp writes "Online education has had a fifty-year road to 'overnight' success. MIT Technology Review calls the emergence of free online education, particularly massive open online courses (MOOCs), The Most Important Education Technology in 200 Years. 'If you were asked to name the most important innovation in transportation over the last 200 years,' writes Antonio Regalado, 'you might say the combustion engine, air travel, Henry Ford's Model-T production line, or even the bicycle. The list goes on. Now answer this one: what's been the single biggest innovation in education? Don't worry if you come up blank. You're supposed to.' Writing about MOOC Mania in the Communications of the ACM, Moshe Y. Vardi worries that 'the enormous buzz about MOOCs is not due to the technology's intrinsic educational value, but due to the seductive possibilities of lower costs.' And in MOOCs Will Eat Academia, Vivek Haldar writes, 'MOOCs will almost certainly hollow out the teaching component of universities as it stands today...But all is not lost, because the other thing universities do is research, and that is arguably as important, if not more, than teaching.' So, are MOOCs the best thing since sliced bread, or merely the second coming of 1920s Postal Course Mania?"
To bad that non college education does not get the respect is should.
Now if tech had more of a apprenticeship / Union Hall system for IT skills.
this, and the many other articles I've been reading lately that decry the death of the university, completely ignores the fact that many people learn best when they have the routine of going to a physical classroom and being in a seminar-style setting where there is an instructor and other students to ask questions and round out one's understanding of a topic. i think it's all hogwash. maybe remote learning can replace certification tracks or community college, but get real. this is a load of dung.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
"...the other thing universities do is research, and that is arguably as important, if not more, than teaching..." And who is going to foot the bill? Certainly not most states (although its in their best interest) who even now are cutting back.
many people also learn best hands on not in a pure classroom or a classroom with loads of theory and very little hands on.
also you need instructors who have done work in the field in some areas vs ones that have been in the school system there full life.
I raise serious eyebrows to this whole thing. Online courses can't have hands-on training using expensive lab equipment. It might make sense with liberal arts courses, but there's no way it can replace certain things about current real classrooms, labs and teachers.
Also, everyone I've ever talked to who's taking some traditional courses and some online strongly believes that the online courses are pretty much useless when it comes to learning things. They just take them because they're required.
If it's about cost-cutting, you always always always get exactly what you pay for.
The Cheetos cheese dust must have been flying off your fingers as you typed that up. You able to get up out of mommy's and daddy's basement without the help of a forklift, yet?
People's bias toward the status quo is sometimes hard to understand. Why is it crazy to have free or low-cost video lessons taught by professors selected out of many for their teaching enthusiasm and ability (not to mention the automatic quizes to make sure that learning is not completely passive)? Rather, isn't crazy that in many cases students pay around $4,000 for the privilege of being taught by a foreign T.A. with a tenuous grasp of English whose highest priority is just to make it through grad school?
There are some subjects, and some students, for which the MOOC is fine. A highly-motivated student may not need the guidance of a face-to-face teacher. I have taught freshman classes where many of the students took the class only because they had to have a science course; it is possible that they learned something, and they probably would not have taken the time to dig it out on their own. I am convinced, however, that being "in residence" is extremely valuable for graduate work. Attending seminars regularly, having a good major professor, and interacting with people who are interested in learning the same material is a powerful teaching method.
This comment would have had a lot of impact if you took the time to use and spell the words correctly. I make a lot of spelling mistakes on Slashdot, but if this were a post not to make them on, this is it.
For the record, and for the most part I agree with you. I've seen too many University grads who assume that a piece of paper means they are more intelligent, wise, and skillful than someone without one even if that person has years of experience; not understanding that such an attitude belies those assumptions. Not everyone has the means to afford university or the mindset that allows them to learn in that environment. The United States seems to be less inclined this way than in Canada (where a piece of paper is everything) at least in IT. In the U.S., experience still seems to mean something. From what I've seen, equivalent time in the work place often equals or exceeds time studying for a master's degree. There are always exceptions, but it still doesn't add IQ or wisdom, just knowledge. Autodidacticism is highly under-rated.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Unfortunately there are enough bad educators and non-educators out there without a clue. It is really obvious though: There is a small percentage of people that can learn from books by themselves. The others cannot. Whether it is printed paper or some software that is "interactive" matters very little. Motivation, ability for independent insight, etc. is not a thing that can be created. People have it or not. Those that do not have it need a real-life, competent teacher, nothing else will do.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Too bad imbecile moderators don't get the sarcasm that most of the general public has no idea what the term mooc means, never mind the intention to use any of the resources available.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Communications of the ACM: Teaching Programming To A Highly Motivated Beginner
apprenticeship / Union Hall system for IT skills.
The capital requirements for computing are about as close to zero as anything can get; if you have a computer and an Internet connection and working brain, then what more do you need?
If you're not motivated enough to cultivate your own personal projects, then join some open source projects, thereby learning how to communicate your ideas effectively in text (through email), work with multiple people in a distributed environment, maintain cross-platform support, etc.
Then, in an interview:
"We use <insert open source project> as the core of our system. Do you know anything about it?"
"Yeah. I wrote a lot of it."
That opens the door much wider than any snooty beaver ring.
Yeah, how dare they not know about some random term that someone just recently coined. No, we got your implication and it was fucking stupid.
Looks like MOOC is based on Connectivism, in which knowledge is connected. Isn't that what Wikipedia is?
BTW: Who gives a shit about respect?
Here be signatures
Online learning has its great advantages but also has huge disadvantages. Its success mostly depends on what exactly is being taught. There are sciences which you can't learn without proper hands-on and face-to-face peer discussions (philosophy); others which are useless without field experience (archaeology).
Also. A good teacher can identify an uninterested student and make them interested. An online course can't.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mania
Definition of MANIA
1
: excitement manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity, disorganization of behavior, and elevation of mood; specifically : the manic phase of bipolar disorder
2
a : excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm —often used in combination
b : the object of such enthusiasm
So, in conclusion: it's the object of excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm, not the best thing since sliced bread.
Shortcuts to financial prosperity fail
Shortcuts to losing weight fail
Shortcuts to getting in shape fail
Shortcuts to landing a high-paying job fail
Shortcuts to finding a suitable romantic partner fail
Shortcuts to getting an education fail
Who gains? A certain class of entrepreneurs.
As an English teacher, I applaud your effort to chastise the GP for his inability to spell common homonyms, but your inability to use commas correctly - I found disconcerting. Not to mention, the incorrect use of the semicolon. Please edit your post to reflect the misused commas and semicolon.
Thank you
Like a lot of people, I had incredibly shitty math teachers in school who managed to completely turn me off to the subject. Later in life, once I learned what mathematics is actually good for -- which is nearly everything -- I sat down with cheap used textbooks and Schaum's guides and started with algebra and worked through calculus, and then branched out into advanced mathematics. Right now, I'm teaching myself group theory. It is a bit harder to do it on your own without someone to answer questions when you get stuck, but I'm not sure that's actually a disadvantage in the long run: the concept you struggle to understand is remembered better than the one that is handed to you.
So now there are online courses. The difference between a MOOC and a book is what, besides lower information content?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
To bad that non college education does not get the respect is should.
Now if tech had more of a apprenticeship / Union Hall system for IT skills.
The way you write tells us all that you're a moron and none of your ideas should be taken seriously.
You may as well confuse "were/where" and "lose/loose" like the rest of the idiots.
MOOC is nothing more than online learning, brought to us in the 2000s. Distant learning is an really old thing. In the last century it was done through postal service. First, shipping documents, then shipping documents and CDs. With the upcoming of the Internet. More media was delivered through that channel. As the Internet also allows to transfer video and allows synchronous and asynchronous communication (chat, audio and video chat, forum etc.).
All previous distant learning concepts suffered from high drop-out rates. To compensate for that, real life meetings were added to the curricula. Therefore, I assume the same will happen here. However, the content of a lecture could easily be transmitted online. So yes it might kill some private companies in the education business. So be it. Education should be free and if MOOC or online learning can provide that. Fine. Universities are financed by the state and the state are the people living in that state. Therefore, all the content the universities produce is payed by those people and the content should be made available, if possible, to all of them.
Yes, universities are also funded by companies. However, they provide money for research and the companies get their results. But, the rest is financed by the people and therefore the results belong to the people.
BTW: Who gives a shit about respect?
CM Punk gives a shit about respect.
I've seen too many University grads who assume that a piece of paper means they are more intelligent, wise, and skillful than someone without one even if that person has years of experience; not understanding that such an attitude belies those assumptions.
More specifically, employers think a piece of paper is everything and they have absolute control of decent wages.
In the U.S., experience still seems to mean something.
Unfortunately, with zero experience, there are hardly any employers that will hire you without a degree. Employers need to start taking responsibility for workforce training again.
You see, academia is not the dreamworld that professors want you to think it is. In reality, academia has been corrupted by corporations, who have found that they can offload job training onto universities and thus save money. Universities cannot be too demanding when it comes to academics, because the vast majority of students are not looking for rigorous academic education, they are just looking for their ticket to a "good job" i.e. a high-paying job.
So while I agree that online education is not better than typical college education, I cannot say that it is worse, only that it is different. College education is broken, but not for the reasons that people think. College is broken because of bureaucracy, publish-or-perish, and the fact that there are MBAs at every level demanding that departments and professors justify their continued existence in terms of dollars and papers published.
Palm trees and 8
I've been "tasting" the various online courses for the last 15 months or so: started with Dr. Thrun's online AI course, have contacts with people at edX, have taken or viewed courses from a half-dozen entities.
One salient aspect of all of the MOOCs is their overall poor quality.
The teachers are, as a general rule: smart, familiar with the subject, nice people, and well meaning.
The online courses are, as a general rule: boring, poorly presented, supported by poor online tools, and counter-instructive.
Everyone realizes that education is changing, and that in ten years or so there will only be a few players left. Everyone wants desperately to be one of those players, so you have everyone frantically recording lectures and putting them online in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.
Sebastian. Thrun's AI course never bothered to check or correct errors in content, resulting in massive frustration from the students. Anant Agarwal's electronics course had students drowning in directionless theory that suddenly uncovered a useful equation. Daphne Koller's presentation style makes the simplest concepts appear dense.
To give an representative example, Kristin Sainani over at Coursera is running a course on scientific writing (writing for purposes of a published paper, or review of said paper &c). The course content is very good, but the students edit and grade each others' homework.
Perhaps 80% of the students speak almost no English. The end result: 80% of the editing work is tediously instructing other students not on course content, but on basic English (when to use articles, which prepositions to use when, &c), while 80% of the corrections you receive for your work are utterly useless. The overall experience is "massive waste of time for a course of heavily diluted value".
There are occasional standout exceptions, but the overall quality is very low. No one has quite realized that you can't just videotape a lecture and put it up on the web - you have to plan things out ahead of time, add good production value, and have good support. It's not easy, and no one group so far is doing it particularly well.
Online learning is still in beta. Perhaps in a couple of years the technology will mature.
Here we go criticizing the critics while ourselves making critical language mistakes.
Shouldn't ineffective English teachers be the ones held responsible for the inability of the populace to have good English in the first place? If you feel like criticizing someone, just look into the mirror.
many people also learn best hands on not in a pure classroom or a classroom with loads of theory and very little hands on.
True but then university is not really designed for these people. If you want to learn hands-on skills then there are vocational training colleges which will do this far better than a university and which have better connections with the industries that you will likely end up working in. These also typically have instructors with practical experience.
The problem with modern society is that we have achieved a very worthwhile goal that just about anyone can go to university if they work hard and want to. However what we have failed to do is educate people about whether they _should_ go. Indeed it seems to have become the default position that as long as you can make the entrance requirements you should go regardless of whether that is the sensible thing to do given your intended career choice.
He only went to tard^H trade school. Give him a brake!
Now answer this one: what's been the single biggest innovation in education?
The Open University, 1971 http://www8.open.ac.uk/about/main/the-ou-explained/history-the-ou
As an English teacher, I applaud your effort to chastise the GP for his inability to spell common homonyms, but your inability to use commas correctly - I found disconcerting.
Good lord. You're an English teacher? Try learning to write a sentence that flows well. How about: "As an English teacher, I applaud your effort to chastise the GP for his inability to spell common homonyms, but I found your inability to use commas correctly [to be] disconcerting" or simply "... but your inability to use commas correctly is disconcerting."
Abrupt unnecessary dashes often signal an inability to connect subclauses efficiently.
Not to mention, the incorrect use of the semicolon.
Not to mention the incorrect comma in the middle of a sentence fragment. (Hint: If your first sentence didn't sound like a run-on, you should have joined this fragment to the previous clause.)
I really can't stand pedants who make errors while correcting pedants who make errors.
Putting university courses online with the same "read this," "listen to this," "answer these questions" is NOT taking advantage of modern technology... even if they add forums & chat. This isn't a revolution, it's an aging institution's last attempt to find relevance as they continue to raise tuition fees. The only reason universities were relevant up until now, was due to the immense information hoarding. The Internet has changed everything, decentralizing the knowledge that once gave them power. If everyone had access to every text book, college is little more than an overpriced tutoring & certification service.
Shouldn't ineffective English teachers be the ones held responsible for the inability of the populace to have good English in the first place?
Nah, just bash them into the head with the Chicago Manual of Style (NOT the electronic edition!) every time you find a mistake, they'll learn eventually (or ask for a transfer). :-)
Ezekiel 23:20
He only went to tard^H trade school. Give him a brake!
What if he's a plumber and not a car mechanic?
Ezekiel 23:20
Autodidacticism is under-rated by others, but it is easily over-rated by those who have done it. It is easy to assume that you have taught yourself all of the important things, and that the things you haven't learned are unimportant.
Skills that are easily tested for are those that are matters of memorization and basic deduction, and the jobs they qualify you for are comparatively low-paying. It's better than purely mechanical or rote jobs, but the big salaries go to those who have skills beyond certification: cooperation, originality, imagination, communication, curiosity.
A college education is a crude measure of this, and one that is increasingly more expensive than it needs to be. But college offers a breadth that autodidacts often lack. The humanities requirements in particular seem irrelevant to those with technical skills, but they genuinely are important in ways that don't show up on tests.
I'm not saying that all autodidacts lack this. Companies are foolish if they automatically reject a candidate who lacks a college degree. But when a resume crosses my desk without one, it's going to have to have something special to show me that you have the spark that makes you a member of my team, not just a drone who knows how to connect the dots. Similarly, the college grad had better be prepared to sparkle in the interview, because I'm not looking for somebody who scratched out a grade without learning the lessons.
This conversation has been swirling around a lot recently, from excitement about the Khan academy to open source textbooks. The common tenet is that all people need to learn an idea or new skill is access to knowledge, and why don't we get rid of the middle man - the teacher - and free the knowledge. But the problem is that learning isn't about memorizing knowledge (if it was, this problem would have been solved long ago), but with getting rid of all the WRONG ideas and theories that people have an uncanny ability to create. People read a book, then come up with a bunch of incorrect conclusions, and without some instruction or even better discussion with peers those incorrect conclusions will persist. And that is what educational institutions are for, not the teaching of knowledge (which can be found in books), but getting rid of bad, wrong, and incorrect ideas. Then it is of course no surprise that the common complaint about educational institutions is that they force students to conform, they are forced to think inside the box. Ironic, then, that online courses aren't even good at getting students to conform, and it will be no surprise when, in the future, we junk this current model of "online" learning.
Some people value actually learning stuff. Who knew?
I am John Hurt.
Let's just add some more polemic to it
To bad or not to bad, that begs the question...
Did I say that one should not get hands-on experience? No. In many of my classes we did get hands-on experience, plus lectures, plus discussions. I guess that's the advantage to attending a good school and not some online sham school like University of Phoenix.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
'If you were asked to name the most important innovation in transportation over the last 200 years,' writes Antonio Regalado, 'you might say the combustion engine, air travel, Henry Ford's Model-T production line, or even the bicycle. The list goes on. Now answer this one: what's been the single biggest innovation in education? Don't worry if you come up blank. You're supposed to.'
The public school expands beyond New England and its Puritan religious roots,
The American "Red Brick" High School, vocational school and the land grant Agricultural College.
Correspondence courses and adult education
The rise of the sciences in post secondary education
Experiment and discovery vs. rote memorization
700 Science Experiments For Everyone
The G.I.Bill of Rights.
Brown vs Board of Education
The education of women, and the entry of the women into the professions.
Pre-school education and Sesame Street
The way Regalado frames the question almost insures that the techno-geek will come up blank.
The first academically credentialed correspondence courses date back to London in the 1850s. The Chautauqua Institution was reaching out to rural women in the 1880s. Radio was experimenting with "distance learning" in the 1920s.
...allow me to give an intro.
In my country, we have a university, called Virtual University[1], that conducts it's business over the internet. Since my dad was posted to the embassy in Riyadh, and we had an year of tenure still remaining after I did my A-levels, my dad decided to enrol me in the uni, so I had *something to do*.
Basically it works like this: You can study at home if you like (and have an internet connection), or you can visit multitudes of affiliated campuses all over the country. They have hired professional lecturers to perform in front of a camera, and these lectures are available to view in the computer lab/tv rooms of the campuses, over cable TV (four channels, as mandated by law), via video CDs you can order, or on youtube[2].
You also get notes and slides over the site, get and submit assignments over the site, and hold study conference with the teacher or fellow students over it. As for exams, internationally they conducted the exam on the computer via video conference, but nationally, they held exams in their campuses.
Having described the system, how was the study experience, you ask? Miserable!
One-way video lectures never captured my attention (I tend to tune out after ~7 minutes of a continuous rant), so I never viewed them. Lecture notes were very nice, but still limited. I noticed that misconceptions were not caught in the bud but were allowed to carry on, since there was no one monitoring them. Discussions were clumsy, since they were not instantaneous or one to one.
I was maintaining a 3+ GPA, but I realised it didn't reflect my actual knowledge level (barely). I aced assignments not because I knew what I was doing, but because my much more knowledgeable, university going siblings back in Paki pre-checked my assignment and caught errors (they too were unable to clarify just exactly was wrong, communicating over email or IM was clumsy).
This was especially noticeable over the Compsci filler subject they shove in the earlier semesters, regardless of your stream (finance in my case), So while technically I knew HTML, JavaScript, C++, yeah, without my lecturer of a sister, I wouldn't have made the assignments or scrapped through the exams.
But more importantly, I was missing out on the experience. No fellows to discuss with, cooped up in my room in KSA, wasn't exactly conducive to my mental state. Even back in Pak, since there was no proper class session, you never really met with course mates on campus.
Which is why, soon after I came back to Paki, I dropped out, switched to a community college, and got my associate degree. Oh sure, it was a two instead of four year degree, but at least I was *learning* something.(then I moved to ACCA, and here I am , but never mind that)
Basically to sum it up, such a form of education is NOT for your highschool graduate; stick them into a brick-and-mortar institute, they need not just the bookish knowledge but the interaction with their fellows. The need a person for the *immediate* interactivity, not some drone they will tune out to. Also, the degree is not worth shit. Frankly, it's considered only a step above an outright fake degree in matters of public perception and trust. Since they can't see any *visible* effort expended in gaining the degree other than money, it seems to imply that the degree was essentially bought.
And this is why such institutes are limited. Mind you, VU is not our first *open* institute, There is an earlier one, Allama Iqbal Open University[3], which uses postal means rather electronic means to communicate with students, and It too suffers the same flaws.
On the underhand, such universities are *perfect* for people who already have the knowledge or skill, and just need the piece of paper. For a job-goer, who prefers the flexibility over the quality of instruction, such a cheap and flexible method is heaven sent. Also, it's a government recognised university, so its valid for applying to government jobs. Finally, if you are in a place where there *is* no
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
many people also learn best hands on not in a pure classroom or a classroom with loads of theory and very little hands on.
True but then university is not really designed for these people. If you want to learn hands-on skills then there are vocational training colleges which will do this far better than a university and which have better connections with the industries that you will likely end up working in.
I would say that most jobs are also not demanding proper skills from university graduates. Universities should not actually be seen as "theoretical" training exercises for a career. The vast majority of professions would be better learned "on the job" or perhaps in a hybrid apprenticeship with some (probably minor) academic component.
The problem isn't just that too many people are going to universities and thinking of them as a way to get a career -- it's also that too many businesses have come to think that a 4-year degree is actually useful preparation for a job. In reality, many universities are little more than screening systems -- providing a credential that says, "yeah, I can get a minimal number of tasks done and might know a little useless information that could relate to a job in field X." Then the corporation spends a few years while that person figures out field X actually functions in the real world and acquires the skills actually necessary to perform the job.
The whole system would be more efficient if most companies just hired people out of high school and had competitive apprenticeship programs (with some minor theoretical elements perhaps required as outside classwork as necessary). Outside of truly "academic" disciplines (liberal arts, abstract math, advanced research), I can think of very few jobs which really need years of theoretical training courses.
The problem these days is that neither employees nor employers feel any loyalty toward each other, so a company wouldn't want to take a risk training high-school grads only to have them jump ship after they actually know what they are doing, or, worse, turn out to be a dead-beat failures. On the other hand, that's exactly the reason why it's become so hard for people straight out of college to land entry-level positions -- companies know that college education is mostly useless in terms of real-world skills, and they don't want to try to invest in someone for a few years teaching them how to actually do stuff without knowing their reliability or how committed they are to the field. In a competitive market, it's easier just to throw out any resume without at least a couple years of experience.
One of the fundamental principles of training is that the content, delivery and assessment needs to be appropriate to the objectives. You can't accurately assess someones ability to operate a forklift by asking them verbal questions - you need to go actually put them in a machine and watch them operate. I'm not saying there is a degree in forklift operation, but there are now many degrees that require delivery and assessment conponents that can't be completed on-line. But on the other hand there are many that can be - I've completed 2 x Cert IVs, a Diploma and a Graduate Certificate in OHS and training all externally - and only had to show up to university for a couple of exams.
1. Offer something that's always been available, but package it in a pretty bow.
2. Start a astroturf publicity campaign creating a non-existent strawman "crisis" that your business conveniently solves.
3. Profit.
Seriously: if your idea of college and university is sitting and intaking material, you either shouldn't go, should leave, or should have never gone in the first place.
A good college education isn't about the classroom; it's not about the books; it's not about the exams. It's about the interactions with real people in person on applied problems.
When you are able to do internships, research, field work, one-on-one with peers and experts in the field in person in MOOCs, I might reconsider. Otherwise I consider this a huge bubble, like all the talk of grocery stores collapsing in the 90s because we'd all sit at home and just order all our groceries online.
I think that is why I said I don't always get it right either. :)
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
That's what a degree says to me. Ever heard the expression, you don't need to understand the material, just know the stuff the professor wants you to get right on the tests. Or your assignment only has to say the things the professor wants to see. That's how students get good marks. Not from understanding, just mimicking back to the professor what he/she wants to see and hear.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
You're an English teacher? Try learning to write a sentence that flows well.
He could be an English teacher of PE. The English *do* have PE in schools, right? And these don't have to be Shakespeares in order to do their work.
Ezekiel 23:20
BTW: Who gives a shit about respect?
CM Punk gives a shit about respect.
Aretha Franklin gives a shit about R E S P E C T!
I think MOOCs may offer exactly this. What good is a printed certificate of MOOC completion? Not much. However, a course designed by employers as an entrance exam could be pretty cool. Several years ago, our VP of engineering asked me to put together some hard problems to solve that are related to the work we do, and then distributed them at a local university. Several grad students were interested in the challenge, and wrote up solutions. We invited them all to our company for free pizza, and went over solutions. We made offers to two of them, and one accepted. He's still with us today, and he's fabulous. We could theoretically turn those sorts of problems into a company specific MOOC that gave applicants a good feel for the sorts of skills we need. We'd grade the solutions ourselves.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Not to mention, the incorrect use of the semicolon.
Your own command of grammar is hardly exemplary. The so-called sentence which I quoted above has no subject, and is therefore not complete. Your pedantry would be less offensive to me if you knew enough to consistently compose correctly formed sentences.
Please edit your post to reflect the misused commas and semicolon.
I believe you meant to say "Please edit your post to correct the misused commas and semicolon". In the context given, the word "reflect" makes no sense.
In a posting consisting of three sentences you managed to make two mistakes. If you are indeed an English teacher, and if you are representative of your profession, then it's not surprising that grammar and spelling mistakes are so common. Please edit your post to reflect your own high standards, hypocrite.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I thought he was a subtle troll.
It's all about OPPORTUNITY CONTROL via 'professionalization'. It's fine for those sectors that have a reasonable hazard to life, safety and property, but to professionalize every occupation that pays more than the minimum wage is pure opportunity control.
I'm posting anonymously because I'm a Head of School at a well known university, and it probably would not do my career a whole lots of good for these comments to be attributed to me. If that makes me a coward, so be it.
TL;DR: MOOCs are a symptom of change in higher education - the rise of university education as a business - not a cause.
The biggest innovation in higher education in the past 50 or more years has been the commercialisation of education. Universities are not about education - they're businesses that convert a student's dreams and aspirations into cash. Education is just the nice icing on the cake that helps administrators sleep at night when they know full well that they are starting off hundreds of thousands of young people's professional careers with a debt.
Senior university administrators are not academics, but professional managers who have anointed themselves as business leaders. Never mind the fact that their businesses are built on exploitation - of students, their families and the public purse. In the long run, as people realise what's going on, public money will disappear and the institutions that can actually run as businesses will. The rest will die - there will be a concentration of ownership. Governments will be happy with this because they'll be able to put tax dollars into something else, and students and their families will still be screwed because now the market will be free to set whatever price it wants. Oh, you want a good education? That'll cost you more. Human history has almost always been about providing the best education to the wealthiest and most powerful, we're just reverting to defaults.
MOOCs and online learning are a symptom of changes in higher education, not a cause. They make administrators happy because they allow institutions to cover more students over a wider geographical area more cheaply. The quality of that education is totally irrelevant, as long as quantitative metrics can be shown that demonstrate that a student has 'passed' and that 'quality standards' have been adhered to. Since the system is rigged by the system to support universities as businesses, the set standards represent a pretty low bar. The only places where this bar is not set so low are the courses where poor quality graduates become hideously apparent - medicine, for example. Poor medical graduates kill people, poor CS or arts students generally don't. Ask yourself if you're ever likely to see medical graduates doing much of their course online.
I'm not writing this as a bitter loser who resents a system that has treated me badly. I have a six figure salary and my career is on track to become one of these managers, and it makes me sick. One day I'll have to make a choice, and when that day comes, I hope I have the courage to walk away. I doubt anyone can change it.
these don't have to be Shakespeares
That brings up an interesting point. I have a 'facsimile of the First Folio'* copy of Shakespeare's works in my library. Part of why I enjoy reading Shakespear in the first folio edition is the spelling. In Shakespeare's time there were no refined 'rules' for spelling in the modern sense. Words are spelled out the way they sound, with variants. Once you see Shakespeare printed that way you start to notice that the "silent e's" sometimes make the poetry work better if they're pronounced.
My point? Shakespeare possibly would get marks on his paper in a modern school for 'bad spelling.' The nattering pedants who fuss excessively about spelling are a modern phenomenon.
(* grab a Facsimile First Folio if you can get one. I am not sure that it's in print anymore. I bet Google has one, or part of one, online.)
The vast majority of professions would be better learned "on the job" or perhaps in a hybrid apprenticeship with some (probably minor) academic component. (...) The problem these days is that neither employees nor employers feel any loyalty toward each other, so a company wouldn't want to take a risk training high-school grads only to have them jump ship after they actually know what they are doing
The nature of the learning curve typically means you'll "owe" the company and then work it back and that's a fairly ugly position for the employee to be in, you can be quite abused if you can't quit and find another job without some massive penalty fee. My goals and their goals are typically not the same because they're probably better off offloading all their tedious, repetitive work on the newbie to free up time for their highly experienced and productive employees. It's far better for me to make that investment in myself and go to a dedicated institution with a curriculum and exams that is widely known and recognized than some in-house training that may or may not have sucked. That and past employers aren't objective. Either they might be tight lipped as a clam, your and your ex-boss might be buddies so he'll sing praises to you or he hates you because you left.
It's not going to be your degree that makes or breaks your job application, but people still look at it for different things than your work experience. It's the last somewhat objective assessment of your skills they got - assuming it's an institution they know and have a relationship to, or at least can be found in any school rankings for that subject. The only thing that's silly is that they can't look at a high school diploma and decide this is a smart kid we ought to hire, he needs to have a degree. If he comes back later with a degree and the accumulated debt of not working and tuition, he's going to come back asking for higher pay. It's strange that companies don't ask themselves whether they're getting a bad deal too.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A deep understanding of a topic requires theory. Sure, 80% of code monkeys out there might only need practical experience, but understanding the theory is extremely important if you want to fully understand what you're doing on tricky projects.
Agreed and agreed.
And I prefer to think that the lack of grammatical perfection in your post is due either to typing on a phone or to make a point. Though the Grammar Nazis are correct: A good point is made better with a little additional care as to grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Respect should be earned, not with the knowledge obtained, but what has been done with it.
I learn to do. Learning for respect is goddamn stupid.
Here be signatures
I do not believe the commas nor the semicolon were misused. You exhibit symptoms of what I complain about.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
[...] My point? Shakespeare possibly would get marks on his paper in a modern school for 'bad spelling.' The nattering pedants who fuss excessively about spelling are a modern phenomenon.[...]
I suspect if Shakespeare knew he had a standard to follow, he most likely would have followed it and only gotten good marks. Especially with the spelling correctors available today.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."
- H. L. Mencken
A couple of my academic friends believe that MOOCs like Khan Academy will "invert" the teaching process. Instead of attending lecturers for content, and assimilating the material later while doing homework, students will view lectures offline, and assimilate the material in class, in a more lab-like environment.
Sounds good to me.
While MOOCs do allow a lot of people to take courses that they might not otherwise have access to, the bigger question is can you actually learn enough from them to say that you have training in that subject? Previous posts have commented on the droning lectures, which really don't help, even in person.
So a different question is: can a highly-motivated person, who really wants to know about x, take an online course (MOOC or Kahn Academy or whatever) and actually get something out of it. Sure! But a highly-motivated person is probably already determined to learn about x and will find the information somewhere.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
I agree with a lot of what you said - an apprentice-type system is really needed for a lot of jobs. However while a degree is not real-world training and may not be essentially for many jobs it does add something worthwhile while can be useful in _some_ jobs. For example in our last IT hire we took the person with the CS degree plus experience over the person with only experience (but more of it) simply because a degree provides a broader educational base so that, when confronted by some new problem, that person has knowledge that you cannot gain from experience alone. A good example of this is medicine where doctors need to learn about rarer conditions where the experience of seeing a patient with that condition may not be possible.